Our Journey into Missions- part 6

(Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 here.)


In March of 2010, Aaron and I came up to New Tribes Bible Institute in Michigan to essentially “check it out” and find out more about what it would look like to be tribal missionaries. 


By this time, we had become quite a bit more knowledgeable about some of the needs that are present in the world. We had learned that there are literally still thousands of unreached people groups in the world. The list of unreached tribes on one of the walls at the school seemed (and still seems) very overwhelming, but at the same time, just shows how urgent it is that we go.

Our day here at NTBI was awesome. We talked to an admissions counselor in the morning for awhile, and then we went to two different classes. We then talked to a married couple here who were in their final semester and were so excited to go to a tribe. Their passion for reaching the lost was so inspiring. Just everything we experienced here excited us a lot. The training seemed really thorough and doctrinally-sound, and we loved that the teachers and staff at NTBI were all missionaries themselves. 

We drove home that day positive that 1) God wanted us to be preaching the gospel (as He does all Christians…Matthew 28:19-20), 2) we felt burdened to go into tribal missions because the needs are so great, and 3) we wanted to go with New Tribes Mission.

We decided not to start that August, but wait until August of 2011 because of our adoption process. It seemed much more complicated to move to a different state right in the middle of the process, and Nathan and Rachel graciously waited a year for us. We adopted Ivy in November of 2010, and then finally in February of 2011 we told our family and friends that we were going to train to be missionaries (our immediate families had already known for quite a while).

We applied to the school, put our house up for sale, sold a lot of our possessions, and prepared to move to Michigan to NTBI. During the summer of 2011, we had a joint garage sale with Rachel and Nathan to sell a lot more of our stuff, and then in August of 2011, we moved here to NTBI.

We are over one semester into our training now, and I can honestly say that we both get more and more excited about tribal missions each day. We also see more and more of the worth of Christ every day...the more we get into God's Word, the more we see going and proclaiming the Gospel as a privilege and an honor.What a small price to pay after what Christ has done for us.

I am still scared…that never completely went away…but I am so peaceful knowing that we are striving to be obedient to God. There are still many unknowns—where exactly we will end up, how many decades of our life we will be there, how to raise children on the mission field in a God-glorifying way, and about a hundred other things.


We know that “being tribal missionaries” is not something that we can do on our own. It is going to have to completely be God working through us. But we also know that there is not something special about us…we don’t have the “missionary gene” or something. We are just two normal people who have been delivered from The American Dream.


We pray that many many more would be delivered from this paralyzing mindset of apathy and take an honest appraisal of their lives and lifestyles in light of Christ’s last command to His followers, The Great Commission. The needs are urgent, and this life is so very short in light of eternity.


Thank you so much for reading along. We feel so blessed to have so many people supporting us and caring about what we are doing! If anyone ever has additional questions or would like to hear even more about our journey the past few years, missions, or New Tribes Mission, Aaron and I would love to talk to you.